On the comparisons between Starkiller Base and the Death Star, Abrams said,

“It is very much — and it’s acknowledged as such in the movie — apparently another Death Star. But what it’s capable of, how it works, and what the threat is, is far greater than what the Death Star could have done. Starkiller Base is another step forward, technologically speaking, in terms of power.”

On how Hux reached the title of general at such a young age, Gleeson (who's 32) said,

“You don’t get that high up in your life that quickly unless you’re pretty ruthless. You have to put a few people down on the way to get there.”

On why Hux is involved with the First Order, Gleeson said,

“It’s in the title: order. It’s a desire to lump everything in its place and just have power. The desire for power is hugely motivating for a lot of people and normally the people who want all the power are not the ones who should have it.”

And finally, on Hux's relationship with Kylo Ren, Gleeson told EW,

“He’s kind of opposite Kylo Ren. They have their own relationship, which is individual and unusual. One of them is strong in different ways than the other. They’re both vying for power.”

That's some pretty interesting insight into Hux from Gleeson. I'm really intrigued to see what his relationship with Kylo is like, it sounds like it will be tense! I also like that Abrams says that Starkiller Base is acknowledged as being a re-imagining of the Death Star in the film. It shows that both the characters and the crew are aware of the past.

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death star evolved into star killer much the same way(I imagine) as we evolved the musket into the ar-15.....those how are calling out jj for being unoriginal are missing the realisim this brings...why try to reinvent the wheel when you can just improve upon an already sound design..

Absolutely true about the design evolution of these super weapons. The Death Star was an incredible instrument of power for the empire. It's destruction was due partly to the ego of those who created it, and partly due to the desperate determined nature of the rebel alliance.

And as Matt said, why reinvent the wheel, some of the most successful organizations in the world spend 90% of their energy creating better iterations of products that they already made.

So cannot wait to see this movie, and introduce a new generation to Star Wars as my 7 year old daughter is excited to see it too

sound design? the Death Star? I thought the Empire had learnt, after two of this grotesque "ultimate superweapon" blown away with enthusiasm by a bunch of rebel fighters (with massive loss for the Empire), that you don't simply rely for all your military power on a single, giant, orbital station, that can't even properly defend itself. I mean, what's wrong with you Empire, concentrating the majority of your forces in a spherical trap?! Also, the second Death Star was even more flawed in design than the first one - just drive your spaceship to the very center of that thing and fire a couple of missiles. boom. done - thus confuting the iterative-evolutionist theory about Empire's superweapons. The greatest military achievement of the Death Star was exploding Alderaan, a non-military target. Well Done Tarkin.This Starkiller Base idea, I don't know, I don't like the concept of "more big, more powerful". Remember "the bigger they are, the hardest they fall". Generally, I hope The Force Awakens will not be an exacerbation of the topics of the classic trilogy, just to attract dull old fans who are stuck in the '80s and deny the intrinsic value of the saga as an exaology (six episodes, joint).

First of all, the concept of the superweapon isn't what failed the Empire, it was the failed design of the first Death Star (why even have the exhaust port so accessible?) and the arrogance of deeming the second Death Star "fully operational" when it wasn't even finished. What failed the Empire was hubris.

Secondly, what makes you think "the majority of [their] forces" were in there? There's utterly no way the Empire could sustain rule over an entire sprawling GALAXY with a single battlestation of troops; that doesn't make any sense, not even in a fantasy saga like Star Wars lol That was just a giant space station but hardly the ENTIRE Imperial military force. Hence the fallout of the war and the events that lead us up until Episode VII; had the Empire's full might truly been wiped outside of Endor, then why would we have this conflict 40 years after the fact?

Superweapons are something that has long existed throughout Star Wars lore (now Legends but still very much a Star Wars thing) and predates Palpatine's Death Stars by thousands of years. The original Sith Empire had a few, the Rakata dabbled, the Mandalorians even had one. Super Weapons are all the rage in the Star Wars universe... so the Death Star was hardly an innovative concept even if it was an innovative (theoretically lol) design at its time. Right now, 40 years later, is a new design... one that probably doesn't have any of the Death Star's flaws and from the looks of it is literally built INTO a planet and appears to be devastating.

From a storytelling perspective, it makes considerably MORE sense that, as Matt pointed out earlier, the natural progression is to improve upon an existing concept with newer technology. In our real world, how come gunpowder firearms haven't been replaced by something completely different like poisonous pressurized air shafts or lasers or something lol If you're going to execute a full paradigm shift, you're gonna have to replace it with something that is MORE effective at the endgame.

What other way is there to destroy entire planets or star systems than building super weapons?

You're never going to be satisfied if you're already going into the new movies with the attitude that they're already ruined smh

Sincerly I don't see the difference between the "concept of superweapon" and "failed design". A superweapon like Death Star IS failed design by definition. But I agree with you on the point of hubris. Hubris is what destroyed the Emperor, with his misplaced faith in the corruptive power of Dark Side. Hubris was a winding sentiment in the Empire ranks, mainly in the form of pride for the "technological terror" they built. Before the battle of Yavin, they felt unstoppable, but this conviction was based on a evaluation error. Vader himself preferred to stay on smaller cruiser than on the Death Star, maybe perceiving the incoming catastrophe. Why the Empire's Ministry of Finance did not alert the Emperor on the inherent risk of constructin that engineering horror, simply conducting a costs\benefits analysis? Why anyone pointed out the potential menace constituted by a small squadron of rebel x-wings, adeguately motivated? Just look at the statistics: a Tie Fighter has higher chances of not being blown up than a Death Star.

On the second point, I meant to say that the majority of their Firing Power was polarized by the Death Star, not the majority of the Imperial Army. I perfectly know that Empire had multiple outposts displaced everywhere in the galaxy, both on terrain and in the vacuum of space, but this was a costly way to gain control over a vastity of diverse and parsecs-far systems. To achieve supreme control they needed something at the same time highly effective and intangible. This is precisely what the "plans for the future" refer to in SWIII. They built Fear. Death Star(s)' power was way more symbolic than concrete. How many times did that super-turbo-laser even fired? If I remember properly, in the saga, two times. And why make a planet explode when you can pillage all its natural resources and enslave the inhabitants, through ordinary war of conquest? To inoculate fear in the hearts of the citizens of the galaxy, so that no other system will even think to resist Empire's grasp anymore. Empire demanded complete surrounder by fear of annihilation. And how you do obtain that? Constructing a giant weapon with almighty fire power and using that just a couple of time, as intimidation (did somebody say atomic bomb?). Too bad this type of structure has the security level of a podracer.

I'm not ruining my movie experience. I just love Star Wars and I love to theorize about it. For example I am enthusiast of the new medieval saber design and I'm looking forwad to see how Kylo Ren will handle it. But I'm sure of one thing: if Starkiller Base embodies the absurdity of Death Star, I will laugh hard on the face of First Order and General Hux.

Perhaps I misinterpreted your original post. The ingenuity behind the Death Star isn't its tangible power as you rather perfectly noted but rather the FEAR they were able to spread in its anticipation. Combine that with the singular demonstration of it on the planet of Alderaan and you've got yourself one hell of an effect on dissenting systems. The Death Star is essentially a propaganda gimmick that also packs a whopping planet-busting gun.

Also, at no point does the OT suggest that the Empire is really low on funds either as they were able to immediately start working on another Death Star shortly after their failure with the first one. I would imagine that the Imperial Central Bank has very little trouble sapping resources and wealth from all of its subjects as long as life is fancy still on Coruscant. We can see from our time spent on Bespin in ESB that the moment a planet is observed making some serious cash flow, the Empire comes in and takes over the operation.

What makes the events of ANH so much more awesome contextually is that the Rebel Alliance acted as a pebble in a slingshot against the mighty Empire; that while they would always be outmatched might-versus-might, they could win the intangible war by bringing down the Death Star and, even if briefly, steal the Empire's monopoly on fear. After all, is that not what hope is? Hope is not as useful in an even fight... but it is devastatingly powerful (as the Empire would eventually find out) in a totally lopsided affair. This is, albeit a poorly stylized analogy because #toosoon, much of how terrorism works... by attacking the IDEA of something even if the physical effect is no more than a kick to the nuts. The Empire could shrug off another failed Superweapon but it cannot, as easily, dispel the notion that it is no longer impervious.

Which is why I'm kinda confused by your original post lol we are clearly in agreement in reading your second post that the Death Star was an entirely symbolic power rather than a concrete, tangible one. So why would creating another one be a bad idea for the First Order who are probably trying to do the same thing? It didn't have to LOOK like another Death Star (except for the fact that it is considerably more inconspicuous as it looks like another Hoth floating around in space) but I don't see anything wrong with going the same route and getting a big bad scary super weapon to scare the daylights out of dissenting or resisting planets.

Like you, I would hate to see it have the same flaws and absurdity of fail (though even then, it'd be consistent with dummies doing dumb things lol)... In fact, I would love to see that Starkiller Base CANNOT be destroyed and that the best the good guys can hope for is to commandeer it for themselves. Perhaps the New Republic is, itself, corrupt and becoming the terror it meant to destroy? That'd be a much more interesting plot device than for the good guys to go and blow Starkiller up lol besides, if i'm not mistaken, one of the rumors floating around is that the Republic DOES have a super weapon, too! SUPERWEAPON ORGY!

And like you, I'm also excited about Kylo's saber. I don't get all the hate on it; I think it's a brilliant aesthetic and the whole argument that it is an illogical design just seems like a really bad, unfunny joke as NOTHING about a lightsaber is at all logical lol. Plus I think it's clear that, in building it himself, he probably lacked a crystal (or at least a good one from Ilum) and might not even be that adept at using the force to have been able to build a legitimate saber to begin with.

Yeah, I love to theorize about Star Wars too if you can't tell :) it's nice to discuss this stuff with someone who shares that level of passion and depth of Star Wars knowledge. So forgive my previous post if it seemed a bit confrontational, I meant no offense.

And tomorrow, I go into Battlefront hibernation until Dec. 17th hahaha

And after seeing the movie, I am not impressed to constate that I was utterly right on foreseeing the useless, ridicolous nonsense of Starkiller Base. Yes, the concept of a solar powered, star-sapping superweapon is interesting, even more frightening, to some extent, than the Death Star was, but when this triggers the same exact trite and corny plot line already seen in not one, but two (three, if we count the internal explosion of the Trade Federation mothership) star wars films (get a scheme of the superweapon-lower the shields to approach-fire at the weak spot-boom), well, this is when the authors committed a gross script error, stressing a plot device for the fourth time that felt unlikely and unconvincing even in RotJ. Even the Resistance is pissed and bored with the First Order lack of invention.

The result? a sense of absurd, tedious, implausible and annoying deja-vu, that fails miserably at delivering the skyrocketing tension of the Trench Run. It is a pity, because every other recursive theme in TFA is a welcomed bittersweet proustian madeleine, light-speed flung right on your face.

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